Golden’s article is a fact-driven effort to
capture the 18th century’s turbulent atmosphere of social and
political change, and to speculate on how it may have influenced the thinking
of Richardson and Fielding.The author
finds extensive parallels between the lives of contemporary political figures
and the characters of Pamela,
likening Mr. B. to King George II and Pamela to Queen Caroline, for
example.These parallels become
especially compelling as Golden points out recurring images of royalty in
Richardson’s text, as well as its overtones of political strife and
reconciliation.Golden also suggests
Richardson’s own life story as a prominent influence on the novel, as elements
of its plot echo the ascent and struggles of his printing career.Through these and many other examples,
Golden seeks to define what was going through Richardson’s mind as he was
preparing to write Pamela, and the influences that shaped its development.

This essay is much less expansive in its
treatment of Fielding, leaning toward interpretation and summary rather than a
rigorous examination of potential influences; however, it does provide some
insight into the background of this author.In particular, Golden emphasizes Fielding’s career as a political
journalist hostile to political orthodoxy, a role that would have well prepared
him to write his scathing critique of Richardson’s politics in Shamela. He also stresses Fielding’s awareness of the
dangers of subversive prose, citing the novelist’s use of opposing commentators
(Oliver and Tickletext) as a means of distancing
himself from the conflict and protecting his own identity from direct
scrutiny.Finally, Golden places Shamela in a
political context, noting similarities between its characters and political
figures as further evidence of Fielding’s connection to political journalism.

In this wide-ranging article, Gooding asserts
that the flood of 18th century literary responses to Pamela
are not merely centered on moral evaluation, though writers of the time often
loudly declared themselves as either Pamelists or
Anti-Pamelists on moral grounds.Instead, he shows how these response texts
also carry implicit (and often overlooked) attacks on Richardson’s subversive
political vision.In particular, Gooding
establishes Pamela as a radical
political argument for class equality, and he demonstrates how Pamela’s supporters and detractors react
to this crucial point.

Gooding presents a close examination of
Kelly’s Pamela’s Conduct in High Life as
a representative work of the Pamelist genre.This novel, though the most
faithful to the original, critically undermines Richardson’s political message.By elevating Pamela’s birth rank and prose
style, Kelly means well but implicitly supports the old aristocratic order that
Richardson argues against.In this and
other Pamelist works, Gooding sees a fear of social
progress and a tendency to suppress challenges to aristocratic order.

In Shamela, Gooding notes the charges of hypocrisy and flaky
characterization that mark most Anti-Pamelist works;
but he focuses mostly on an evaluation of Fielding’s political message.In Shamela, he writes, Fielding lowers the original Pamela’s
birth rank and writing style; Fielding also systematically reduces the moral
and psychological complexity of his main characters.In doing so, he renders moral assessment of his
characters nearly impossible, eliminating any ground for a broader political
discussion.On the whole, Gooding
claims, Fielding’s response suggests an attitude of social conservatism, but
fails to openly address the issues of aristocratic authority raised in
Richardson’s novel.

From the Pamelists’
tendency to elevate Pamela’s character and in the anti-Pamelists’
pattern of degrading her, Gooding concludes by noting the paradox that writers
on both sides betray a desire to protect traditional aristocratic order.

Wilputte’s thought-provoking argument interprets the
gender-ambiguous characters that populate Fielding’s Shamela as a part of a larger
warning against the dangers of ambiguous language.Wilputte notes a
pervasive theme of homosexuality in Shamela,
especially in characters such as (Fielding’s) Mrs. Jervis, with her manly
appearance and demeanor.Just as these
characters represent sexual characteristics opposed to traditional heterosexuality,
Fielding’s language is also pervaded with a moral vocabulary opposed to its
traditional meaning.The word “virtue,”
for example, refers in Shamela
to a physical state rather than a spiritual one; it is homosexual in the sense
that it carries a meaning contrary to the original intent of the word.

Shamela’s more significant sexual ambiguity is
bisexuality, as represented by characters like ConnyKeyber, who stands for two opposite things at once.In Wilputte’s view,
Shamela is
dominated by overtly bisexual language – in particular, by words that carry
opposing meanings and cannot therefore be interpreted with any confidence.For instance, the word “honor” is used so
often and so indiscriminately in the text that it has come to stand for a
multitude of contradictory meanings; in consequence, the reader can never be
sure exactly what is meant by the word.

Wilputte draws these arguments together by
establishing Fielding’s social conservatism, noting his belief that sexual
passion is best restrained within traditional boundaries of
heterosexuality.The text of Shamela, Wilputte declares, reveals a similar conservatism in
Fielding’s views of language, as it shows the danger of allowing our moral
vocabulary to become promiscuous and imprecise.Wilputte’s article
is somewhat light on examples and would be stronger with a more rigorous
examination of the novel’s vocabulary, but overall it is a fresh, smart, and
well-reasoned attempt to reconcile sexuality and language in Fielding’s
writing.